Hector Zamora
|latest = }} Hector Zamora is a hardened criminal who was best friends with Dante Gomez. History While he was young, Hector joined the same gang as Dante Gomez and the two became best friends. Year later, Hector would call Dante "the only real friend I ever had." Despite his young age, Hector had two strikes or felony convictions by 1997 and faced an automatic life sentence if he got a third one. On June 7, 1997, Hector and Dante robbed a liquor store in Northridge. At the same time, Dante's girlfriend Ana Escobedo was murdered and Dante was framed for the murder. Though Dante could prove his innocence by confessing to the armed robbery instead, if he did, everyone would know that Hector was his accomplice and Hector would be sent to jail for life as a result. Because Dante confessed to Ana's murder to protect Hector, he was sentenced to twenty years in prison rather than the relatively lighter sentence he would've gotten for the liquor store robbery. Hector lasted seven months after the robbery before committing a crime that got Hector his third strike and a life sentence. As a thank you to Dante who Hector felt wasted his life by protecting him, especially since Hector had only lasted seven more months anyway, Hector put out the word that Dante was not to be harmed. Hector's gang influence was so great that even with Hector in prison, his wrath was feared if his order was ignored. In 2014, Dante was released on parole and began seeking to reopen the investigation into Ana's murder. As part of that, Dante provided Detective Julio Sanchez with the address of the liquor store robbery, though he did not name his accomplice. With the robbery still unsolved seventeen years later, Captain Sharon Raydor decided that their best bet to confirm Dante's story was to solve the robbery and ask the other man in the video if Dante was with him on the night of the robbery. Lieutenant Michael Tao and Buzz Watson managed to clean up the security tape from the robbery enough for facial recognition software to get a partial match on Hector Zamora as one of the guys in the liquor store. Though not enough to hold up in court, the facial recognition combined with Ana's brothers identifying Hector as the one who placed Dante off-limits to harm convinced the LAPD that he was the man from the video. Hector was brought to the Major Crimes Division for interrogation where he was interrogated by Tao and Detective Amy Sykes. Confronted with video of the robbery, Hector refused to cooperate as he did not want to be put on trial again. Sykes informed Hector that the statute of limitations had run out on the robbery years before and Hector was already doing life meaning that they couldn't try him for it. After Tao suggested that Hector's cooperation would gain him better amenities in prison, he acknowledged that he was the one in the video, but refused to identify the man with him. In order to gain Hector's cooperation, Sykes and Tao revealed Dante's murder the night before. Hector was saddened by his friend's death and the two detectives asked for his help in solving the murder by answering their questions about the robbery. Hector finally admitted that Dante was the other man in the robbery and explained how Dante lied to protect him. With Hector's testimony exonerating Dante, the LAPD turned their attention to finding Dante and Ana's real killer. After Cesar Padilla was identified as the killer, Sykes purposefully brought Cesar in front of the window to the Major Crimes conference room where Hector was and made sure Hector got a good look at Cesar, allowing Hector the chance to realize that Cesar was at least suspected of being the killer. In interrogation, the detectives forced Cesar to confess to the murders and make a deal, threatening to leave him to face Hector Zamora's wrath by arresting Cesar for Dante's murder if he refused. In return for confessing, Cesar was sent to prison under a different name far away where Hector could not get to him to kill Cesar in revenge for murdering Dante. Trivia *While talking with Julio Sanchez, Dante states that only one of his friends from before he went to prison is still alive. This is presumably Hector though Dante doesn't mention him by name. *Hector is taller than 5'10 as he is stated to be the taller of two men robbing the liquor store and Dante is 5'10. *Hector's body is shown to have multiple tattoos. The visibly identifiable tattoos are the numbers 213 on Hector's neck and teardrops coming out of his left eye. Hector presumably got these in prison as the mug shot of the younger Hector appeared to lack tattoos. *Hector's exact rank in the gang hierarchy or what gang he belonged to was unclear. However, he clearly possessed a great deal of influence to the point that his wrath was feared even with Hector in prison. *Hector was well-known enough that a picture of Hector from 1997 with his face partially-hidden was still enough for the Escobedo brothers to identify him instantly after seeing the picture. Appearances ''Major Crimes'' Season 3 * Category:Characters Category:Major Crimes Category:MC Season 3 Category:Armed Robbers